CURRENT AFFAIRS: FEBRUARY 11, 2018

CURRENT AFFAIRS: FEBRUARY 11, 2018

Centre drafts 10-city plan to clean Ganga

• The Centre has drafted a plan to check the flow of sewer water into the river Ganga by installing sewage treatment plants (STP) in 10 major cities.
• These cities reportedly contribute about 65% of the total polluted water flowing into the river. As per an official of National Mission for Clean Ganga, these STPs would ensure 100% sewage treatment.

• PM visits 125-year-old Shiva Temple in Muscat
  Modi visited a 125-year-old Shiva Temple and the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which is made of 3 lakh tonnes of Indian sandstone, in Oman’s capital Muscat.
  PM Modi, who is on a three-nation tour to the Middle East, reached Oman on Sunday and addressed a gathering of nearly 20,000 Indians at the Sultan Qaboos Stadium.
  Temple was constructed 125 years ago by the merchant community from Gujarat.

• Indian engineer awarded at Sci-Tech Oscars
• Vikas Sathaye, an engineer from Mumbai, is part of a four-member team that bagged the ‘Scientific and Engineering Award’ at the Oscars 2018 Scientific and Technical Awards.
• The team was honoured for the development and implementation of Shotover K1 Camera System.
• The six-axis stabilised aerial camera mount gets attached to the base of helicopters and helps in shooting steady footage.

• Keshavan comes 34th at his 6th Olympics
  Four-time Asian champion India’s Shiva Keshavan on Sunday finished 34th out of 40 in the men’s singles luge event at PyeongChang Games, his sixth Winter Olympics campaign.
• The 36-year-old Himachal Pradesh-born athlete’s best finish at the Games had come in 2006 in Turin when he finished 25th.
• Shiva is one of the two Indians who qualified for the 2018 Games.

• NITI bats for separate debt office in IndiaNITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar made a strong case for setting up an independent debt management office, saying better servicing of loans could lead to substantial reduction in India’s interest payments.
• At present, the government debt is managed by the RBI.
• The interest payment on the public debt is estimated to rise from Rs 5.3 lakh crore in 2017-18 to Rs 5.75 lakh in 2018-19.

• India, UAE to hold first naval drill in Gulf
  Modi completed his 3 nations visit and made various developements.
• Before he flew on to Muscat, the PM, reiterated strong cooperation on combating terrorism and a defence partnership that will see the Indian Navy conducting an exercise in the Gulf waters.
• This is the first time Indian Navy will be exercising in the Gulf, going beyond the Arabian Sea.

• Three new eel species found in Bay of Bengal
  
• Scientists have discovered three new species of eel along the northern Bay of Bengal coast in the past few months.
• One was discovered at the Digha coast of the Bay of Bengal.
• The other two species were discovered from the Visakhapatnam coast of the Bay of Bengal.
• A description of all the three new species was published in the journal Zootaxa.

Asia’s largest Christian meet

• The 123rd Maramon Convention which is billed as Asia’s largest week-long annual Christian meet began.
• It started with a call to conserve river Pampa and the environment at its traditional venue on the riverbed of Pampa at Maramon near Kozhencherry on Sunday afternoon.
• The convention venue was shifted to Maramon a few years ago.

• Tribal areas to soon get bike ambulances
  
• Buoyed by the response to the free bike ambulance service in Mumbai, the State government is planning to expand the fleet and run similar services in tribal-dominated regions.
• The Maharastra government is planning to launch 30 additional ambulance bikes, out of which 10 will be used in Mumbai.
• The emergency first responder service is available through the ‘108’ helpline.

• Letter ended Nagaland poll impasse
  
• A letter written by the Centre’s interlocutor R.N. Ravi to the Naga groups, including the NSCN (Isak-Muivah), on Feb 3 helped to end the impasse over the Nagaland Assembly elections.
• Civil society groups and the NSCN(I-M) called a boycott of the elections till a political solution was reached.
• Ravi assured the groups that the new Assembly would not come in the way of the final agreement.

• Pakistani Activist Asma Jahangir Passes Away
  
• Asma Jahangir, Pakistan’s renowned human rights lawyer, social activist and an outspoken critic of the country’s powerful military establishment, passed away of cardiac arrest.
• She was the first woman to serve as the president of Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan.
• Born in January 1952 in Lahore, Asma co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

• Rohan More Swam Across Ocean Seven
  
• Pune-based swimmer, Rohan More became the first Asian as well as the first Indian to swim across the Ocean Seven. He is the youngest to complete it.
• He swam across the Cook Strait between North and South Islands of New Zealand in 8 hours and 37 minutes.
• With this, More becomes only the ninth person in the world to complete it. He has received the Tenzing Norgay Award.

• ONGC Vid. Acquire stake in Abu Dhabi Oilfield
  
• ONGC Videsh Ltd and its partners have acquired a 10% in a large offshore oilfield Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s (ADNOC) in Abu Dhabi for $600 million.
• It is the first time any Indian company has set foot in oil-rich Emirate.
• The current production of this field is about 400,000 barrels of oil per day (20m tonnes per annum) and Indian consortium’s annual share shall be about 2 million tonnes.

• Direct Tax Collection Rise 19.3% In April-Jan
  
• Direct tax collections grew by nearly 20% between April and January this year with strong growth in both corporate and personal income tax receipts.
• According to official data released, net direct tax collections grew by 19.3% up to January 2018 to Rs 6.95-lakh crore.
• While net corporate income tax grew by 19.2%, personal income tax receipts rose by 18.6 per cent in January this year.

• India, Oman Sign 8 MoUs
  
• India and Oman have signed 8 MoUs in different areas during Modi’s maiden visit to the Gulf nation.
• Agreements were inked in the areas of defence, health and tourism.
• An MoU on legal and judicial co-operation in civil and commercial matters was also signed.
• The agreements were inked after Mr Modi held delegation-level talks with the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al Said in Muscat.

• SBI has over Rs 20,000 Crore bad loans
• SBI wrote off bad loans worth Rs 20,339 crore in 2016-17, the highest among all the public sector banks, which had a collective write off of Rs 81,683 crore for the fiscal.
• The data pertains to the period when the associate banks of SBI were not merged with it.
• Besides SBI, Punjab National Bank had a write-off of Rs 9,205 crore in 2016-17, followed by Bank of India (Rs 7,346 crore).